IK Monitor Articles (7-2)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, July 1999

Contents IK Monitor (7-2) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | © copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 1999.

Column

For the fun of it! by Louk Box

Louk Box is director of the Maastricht-based European Centre for Development Policy Management and professor of international cooperation at Utrecht University (the Netherlands). His views are based on adaptive agricultural research (1978-1992) among experimenting cultivators in Latin America and in the Netherlands (Wageningen Agricultural University).

Imagine that you are standing on the edge of a cassava field bordered by a bushfallow. The cassava field is neatly laid out and covers about an acre, just the size that can be worked by one man. Now imagine that you are a researcher interviewing Antonio, the local street-sweep, who also grows cassava. You want to know why he is growing cassava and where his varieties came from. He signals you to follow him. Into the bushfallow you go, pushing the branches away, swatting the occasional bug. Right in the middle your guide stops and asks: 'What do you see?' You tell him that you don't see anything but branches, bush and patches of bare soil. 'Wrong', he says, 'you're looking at a laboratory--and a secret laboratory at that!' He goes on to explain how this little bush was cultivated years ago by his father. At that time, people in the mountains had many varieties of cassava, most of them now extinct. But all of them are represented on this plot, offspring not legitimate, not propagated by cuttings, but reproduced through true seed, and growing like wild seedlings. You understand: this is a living museum, a nursery of bio-diversity. Then you ask Antonio why he keeps it secret. He looks at you, marvelling at your ignorance and says: 'Because of my neighbours. They will be mad at me if they know that I grow illegitimate varieties. People might get poisoned.' He adds, with a twinkle in his eye: 'but I'll keep messing around in my laboratorio as long as I live--because it's fun.'

Playful work
Why am I telling you this anecdote? Just for fun. I see fun, or play, as an important factor in technological change. In fact, I am a fan of the non-utilitarian approach to knowledge, which includes notions like playfulness and curiosity. I believe that among cultivators and scientists, all agrarian knowledge emerges through an interaction between play and utility. This is something that all innovative cultivators can tell you, whether they live in a rich country like the Netherlands or a poor country like the Dominican Republic. Utilitarian factors like yields, income, and food security are only part of the picture. The non-utilitarian factors are equally important, such as personal preferences (the taste of a product or a certain plant architecture) and, above all, the fun of experimenting. Nearly all of the cultivators I have interviewed over the years indicated that they enjoyed experimenting. Making a living was, of course, a prime concern, but experimentation was seen as a way of gently playing with nature. The development community knows that the traditional peasant exists in only one place: the scientists' heads. We know that cultivator experimentation is a normal part of agrarian change, a very important part in fact, especially in the case of crops like cassava. Since playfulness and other non-utilitarian values guide the process, there is reason to be sceptical of utilitarian values evident among researchers, extensionists and agro-bureaucrats. I see a clear need for new styles of research management, based on sustainable linkages between the parties involved. May they be grafted onto the playful work of those who enjoy experiments in nature, people like Antonio who reproduce illegitimate diversity in bush laboratorios.